This year’s Krishna Janmashtami was special for those who are familiar
with Evoor Sri Krishna Temple, near Harippad, in Kerala. After a long
gap of more than 30 years, the authorities decided to bring
Nangiarkoothu back to the temple. Kapila Venu, one among the leading
Nangiarkoothu performers, was the artiste chosen for the evening. The
story was Poothanamoksham which required no detailing, especially for
the crowd assembled at Evoor, as the story gets frequent stages there in
the form of Kathakali. However, G Venu (Koodiyattam exponent and
father/mentor of Kapila) explained the nuances to the audience, when it
comes to a Nangiarkoothu presentation.

Kapila Venu did not have the luxury of time as the program got a delayed
start and there was a full-night Kathakali to be presented afterward.
She was forced to trim her presentation to suit the situation. Poothana,
disguised as a beautiful woman, reaches Ambadi to execute Kamsa's order
to slay all the newborn babies. Kapila skipped the early portions in
which the artiste details the scenes of Ambadi as seen by Poothana.
Instead, she started with Poothana searching for the newborns.

Poothana finds a house with a newborn baby and waits for the mother to
leave her child. As Gopika, the mother, leaves for milking the cow,
Poothana enters the house and starts feeding the baby with poison. The
possibilities of pakarnattam were put into good use here to
portray this episode. In turn, Kapila acted the part of Poothana, the
Gopika and also the playful calf. On the downside, Kapila's Poothana
seemed genuinely feminine and the cruel face of the demoness was never
to be seen. Whether Poothana killed all the babies by feeding poison is
also something which is debatable. (Common understanding is that
Poothana decides to feed Krishna with poison, as it was not very easy
for her to kill him with bare hands, as she did others). But, when it
comes to Nangiarkoothu, it is not only Kapila who follows this
traditional way of presentation. As the mother returns, Poothana leaves
the child in the cradle and waits outside the house. The mother finds
her child sleeping for so long, tries to wake him up and breaks down
into tears as she finds her baby is never going to wake up. Kapila was
successful in transferring the agony and pain of that poor mother to the
keen audience. Upon hearing the cries from inside, a contented Poothana
moves on in search of her next prey.

Normally, the performers used to enact a few more instances of Poothana
killing babies. But here, the lack of time forced Kapila to move
straight to the final scene. Poothana finds little Krishna himself in
the next house. As soon as she sees the child, she experiences a
motherly affection towards him and decides not to kill him. At the same
time, she also had the fear that if she failed in her duty, her death in
the hands of Kamsa is certain. After an inner struggle she decides to
kill him by feeding poison and Krishna grants her salvation. Kapila's
portrayal of the emotional conflict of Poothana and the death of the
demoness were almost near to perfection. Instead of overdoing the final
moments, she resorted to a fine and controlled act which was well
appreciated at the end by the audience. In the initial introduction,
Venu G hinted that these sequences were originally choreographed by late
Guru Ammannoor Madhava Chakyar.

Kalamandalam Rajeev and Kalamandalam Hariharan were the percussionists
who supported the actor on mizhavu while Kalamandalam Unnikrishnan was
on thimila. The program was sponsored by Thinkpot Productions as an
offering to the deity.

Hareesh N Nampoothiri is a visual design consultant by profession and
a lover of classical art forms. Being an ardent follower of Kathakali,
he conceptualized and directed a documentary on Kathakali titled
'Thouryathrikam,' which introduces the nuances of Kathakali to the
common man. Writing and photography are his other passions.